Name

Further information: Naming of the Americas, New Spain, Turtle Island (Native American folklore),

and Vinland

Map of North America, from 1621

The Americas are usually accepted as having been named after the Italian explorer Amerigo
Vespucci by the German cartographers Martin Waldseemüller and Matthias Ringmann.[11] Vespucci,
who explored South America between 1497 and 1502, was the first European to suggest that the
Americas were not the East Indies, but a different landmass previously unknown by Europeans. In
1507, Waldseemüller produced a world map, in which he placed the word "America" on the continent
of South America.[12] What was known about the continent was referred to as Parias above what is
today Mexico.[13] On a 1553 world map published by Petrus Apianus,[14] North America was
called Baccalearum, meaning "realm of the Cod fish", in reference to the abundance of Cod fish on
the east coast.[15]
Waldseemüller used the Latinized version of Vespucci's name (Americus Vespucius), but in its
feminine form "America", following the examples of "Europa", "Asia" and "Africa". Later mapmakers
extended the name America to the northern continent. In 1538, Gerard Mercator used America on
his map of the world for the entire Western Hemisphere. [16]